A 85th Birthday Card!

My friends’s father in law was in my home for a lunch party sometime last month. He saw my studio and cards I made and wanted me to make a birthday card for his boss and best friend. My friend’s father in law is in his 80s and he wanted to send his best friend who is turning 85 a birthday card. How adorable is that? Of course I said yes and here is the card I made.

Now when I set to make the card, it was difficult. I did not know what to use? What would a 85 year old man like? Flowers? Cupcake? Balloons? Confetti? Birthday cake?…… What set to use? Will he like bright colours or muted colours? Should I make a masculine card? OMG! I had so many questions and confusion in my head. I asked my friend’s father in law and he said whatever you like. You make beautiful cards. That didn’t help me! I realised that it is easier to make cards for friends and family you know well. Otherwise when I have a new product, I just make birthday cards based on that stamp set or die. But for a senior who I do not know, I found it very hard to design. I decided to use birthday themed images on the background with bright colours as Indians generally love bright colours and gold. Balloons are neutral so I decided to use them. For the focal image, I used numerals.

Simon Says Stamp’s Birthday Numbers stamp set was the choice to make my card. For the background, I sponged distress oxide inks in Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron and Worn Lipstick. Then I used distress inks in the same colours to stamp cupcake, gift and other smaller images from the stamp set to get tone on tone effect. I sprayed the entire panel with shimmer. I then used a slightly darker shade of the three colours in copic markers and added shading only to larger images on the background panel. This make the images pop a bit on the background panel.

I stamped the balloons and the 85 numerals and coloured them using copic markers. Then using the coordinating dies, I die cut them out. I adhered them in the centre of the panel using foam adhesives. I stamped the sentiment in black below it. Using gold glitter cardstock, I die cut a rectangle frame using two of stitched rectangle die from Simon and framed the centre focal point. A few confetti all around to finish off the card.

I was a bit sceptical when I took the card to him. I also took a few more cards I already had with me incase he did not like this one. Thank god he loved it. He was happy and it was a relief for me. Then he tells me that this card is going to his boss (retired of course) who was one of the brains behind a very very famous hospital in Kerala in India. Thankfully he did not tell me this in the beginning because I would have lost my mind overthinking.:) I was proud to make this card for him and proud to make couple of seniors happy. It was an absolute pleasure.

All the supplies used to make this card are listed below.

Supplies:

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today. Have a wonderful day!

Hi! I am Gayatri. My love for creativity initiated this blog. In this blog I share all my handmade papercraft projects. I work for Simon Says Stamp and Taylored Expressions. I also design for Mudra Stamps. Apart from papercrafting, I also love gardening both indoors and outdoors, cooking vegetarian food and interior designing.
This blog is my mode of sharing my creativity with you. Hope you enjoy and get inspired.